Orkut Or Cut ?

After being warned by my sister with dire consequences against joining Orkut I finally took the plunge. So for some time I have got hooked to this virtual network of 30 million people.

And here's a quick analysis on what you can smile about and what you can frown about.

:)

- Exponential increase in the knowledge of current affairs (of friends and foes); sports (who is sporting what style); politics (at office, school) etc.
- Wearing the garb of business at work even while checking out some unknown person's profile.
- Becoming adept at Alt+Tab when you sniff the boss around.
- Saving the trouble of repeatedly telling friends mundane details like likes and dislikes; current occupation and obsessions simply by updating profiles.
- Bumping into old friends and being reminded of some embarrassing moments.
- Knowing what people currently look like albeit in the form of cartoons, hunky film actors or flowers.
- Coping with utter joblessness by reading other people's scrap books.
- Giving email and messenger service providers a good run for their money.
- Harboring a teeny weeny hope of wooing that lost and found crush.
- Shifting the RAM that houses a database of friends and their personal details from the brain to a third party server.

:(

-A constant struggle against fighting the temptation to log in at office.
-Sycophancy existing in its purest form; while updating legends for friends. Hence being compelled to profess fanship just to reciprocate gestures in spite of no such feelings being involved.
-Going round and round among an inner and outer circle of friends.
- Short messages being called 'scraps'
- Excuses such as lack of time or money eliminated against keeping in touch.
- Traffic congestion shifting from roads to networks.
- 'Keeping in touch’ reduced to one liners or most times a few words.
- Living in a weird fear of one's photograph being morphed by some evil character even though he has to choose from 30 million other such pictures.
- Increasing the list of addictions.
- Running the risk of some beans being spilled here and there.
- Not being able to send 'group scraps' for New Year wishes etc.
- Learning to live with weird friend requests who just want to be a 'scraping' partner.
- Coffee shops wearing a desolate look because life stories are often poured out online instead of over a cup of fancy coffee.
- Constantly having to do a reality check of grammar and language.

So its either Orkut or cut from friends and acquaintances. It is like slowly creaking open the backdoor of a ballroom of a host of hopelessly and vaguely familiar faces constantly making merry noises. What makes it more interesting is that you can enter and leave at your own whims and fancies. However the party never stops.